Lawes is level with England’s greatest
Members of the Rugby Writers club have recently been voting for the Pat Marshall award which we scribes use to honour the outstanding rugby personality, ostensibly for the last 12 months although sometimes a lifetime of excellence is also factored into the equation. It is the most prestigious award in our gift. We like to think of it as Rugby Union’s Oscar and our winner will be announced at lunch on Thursday.
The shortlist this year was outstanding, as it always is after a World Cup season, but it took me rather less than a nano second to plump for Courtney Lawes.
I have for many years automatically, without a second’s thought, placed Martin Johnson atop of the England pantheon of players. Worldclass form virtually the day he started playing Test rugby, best in the world at lock for most of his career, World Cup-winning captain, twice Lions skipper. On the plinth below would be the likes of Richard Hill, Lawrence Dallaglio, Jason Robinson, Jonny Wilkinson, Owen Farrell, Jeremy Guscott, Will Carling, David Duckham, John Pullin, Phil Vickery, Fran Cotton, Eric Evans, Richard Sharp, Kendall Carpenter, Ronnie Poulton, Willie Davies.
And Courtney Lawes. Except I’m not sure Courtney doesn’t now top the great man, or at the very least stand absolutely alongside him. Joint first amongst equals. Young Fin Smith hailed him as the secondbest player in the world right now behind Antoine Dupont and I wouldn’t disagree with that assessment either. Even at the age of 35 with a million miles on the clock and various knocks and injuries hurting every morning when he rises, the big man is playing better than ever.
His greatness is very different to Johnno, though, which makes comparisons
tricky. Johnno’s CV certainly includes more silverware largely on account of playing for a pre-eminent club and in the greatest England era of all but Courtney has had his moments. Silver and bronze World Cup medals, a drawn Lions series in New Zealand, an England Grand Slam in 2016, skippering England to a series win in Australia in 2022, a Premiership title with Saints and possibly one more to come.
In my opinion, Courtney is the one England player post-2003 who would without any question have got in that World Cup-winning team. I personally would also suggest peak Chris Ashton would have added something to Clive Woodward’s England, if nothing else it should ensure a lively mailbag this week! The number of tries Ashton might have
scored in that back division, operating behind that pack, is positively indecent. Anyway let’s, for now, see if I can convince you about Courtney.
First, he is just about the only minder in rugby history who dispensed with his duties by being nice. There is no harder man in rugby and he was at the sharp end in 105 England Tests but can you ever remember him resorting to gratuitous violence, pettiness, nastiness, intimidation, showboating, taunting, finger jabbing, mouthing off and general stupidity? Me neither.
He broke the mould as far as minders are concerned by just getting on with it, landing classic textbook tackle after classic textbook tackle, absorbing the biggest busts in traffic and trucking the ball up with controlled ferocity.
Eventually the so-called tough guys and monsters ultimately decided not to mix it with him, a complete waste of time and energy. He has their total respect and for all-comers it has, for a long time, been sufficient challenge just to match his 80-minute excellence.
Then there is his versatility and willingness to learn. After an outstanding career at lock during which he was habitually one of the two or three best second rows in the world, I was dead against him switching to blindside flanker later in his career with England and the Lions.
Why would you sacrifice that experience and proven brilliance in the boiler room on the off chance that he might be equally good in the entirely different role of a number 6? And why move into the back row at the precise time when most mortals tend to lose their gas and agility? Madness.
I thought he struggled initially, but only initially. Well into his 30s, he rededicated himself to, if anything, improving his fitness, learning a new art, getting and thriving in new body positions in the loose, becoming more proficient and disciplined in the jackal to the point of being amongst the best on the planet despite his lanky 6ft 6ins frame and improving his off-loading skills. We, of course, took for granted the continuation of his howitzer tackling and basketball player hands in the lineout. The result has been a host of stunning individual performances, the latest of which was against Leinster’s all-Ireland back row two weeks ago that took your breath away.
Now I strongly suspect Johnno would have been a brilliant Test No.8 – he was an outstanding and natural ball handler – but the truth is he was never asked to make that radical move so we will never know. With Courtney we know for sure. He mastered and became manifestly world-class in two positions up front. Not many have pulled that trick off over the decades.
As with Johnno, my only tiddling criticism would be that he possibly hasn’t scored the number of tries a dynamic athlete like he should but the two of them are and were ultimate team men who saw themselves primarily as facilitators. In their own ways, they made a stack of tries.
Like Johnno, he has also been a one-club man for the duration of his domestic career, a run only interrupted now by his imminent move to Brive this summer where the locals will be hoping he can inspire a return to the big times. There was a time when big name overseas players sometimes looked to France for a pension top up later in their career. Not any more. Brive have done their homework and know their man.